(Extracted from the diary of Toby, M.P.)
Lloyd Charon (to Plutocratic Shades). "Your fares will cost you more!"
House of Commons, Monday, May 4.—Not since epoch-making night four years ago has House been so densely crowded in anticipation of Budget statement. Amongst most honourable traditions of English public life is absolute secrecy in which Budgets are wrapped till veil is lifted by Chancellor of Exchequer. Somehow it gets known in advance when a particular one will prove to be of exceptional public and personal interest. Thus it was to-night. Hence the crowd that filled every bench on floor, every nook and cranny of the galleries.
Expectation fully realised. Lloyd George, Atlas in miniature, lightly bore on his shoulders weight of biggest Budget ever presented to House of Commons. Total expenditure £210,203,000. Total revenue £210,455,000. Balance in hand, £252,000.
How Mr. Micawber's heart would have glowed over this realisation in colossal figures of his cherished principle! You remember his formula to young Copperfield: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six; result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six; result misery."
Lloyd George, keeping this axiom steadily in view, after dallying with income and expenditure counted by the hundred million, came out triumphant with £252,000 in his pocket.
Spoke for two hours and forty minutes. Avoiding flights of eloquence that were wont to entrance Gladstone's audience on Budget nights, resisting temptation to epigram that beset Mr. Chancellor Lowe, was content with plain business statement. The massive figures dealt with, the millions lightly scattered there and sedulously picked up here, left some passages obscure. Son Austen well advised in reserving criticism till he had opportunity of studying statement set forth in print.
Mr. Chancellor Micawber. "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six; result, happiness."
A passage in speech followed with breathless interest below Gangway dealt with increase of super-tax. Chancellor set forth how what he called a "£3,500 man" would, in addition to ordinary income-tax, pay 1.7d. in the £. Running up the gamut to "a £10,000 man" he mentioned that the affluent citizen would oblige with an additional 8.9d.
"I can," he blandly added, "go further if anybody specially wants me."
General expression of sympathy with Houston when he asked what the £100,000 man would be called upon to pay.
"The hon. gentleman," said the Chancellor, with encouraging smile bent on inquirer, "will be let off with an additional 15.3d."
The Member for the Toxteth division of Liverpool didn't seem so pleased with this prospect as might have been expected.
Business done.—Budget brought in.
Tuesday.—Lord "Bob" Cecil, whose industry is equalled only by his ingenuousness, posed the Premier with awkward question. Wants to know "whether the Government propose to continue Sir Nevil Macready's appointment as resident magistrate; if so, whether he will be able in that capacity, in case of civil disturbance, to call upon himself as a military officer to give assistance to the civil power?"
Suggests difficulty at first sight appalling. On historic occasion John Bright found himself in analogous quandary. As he then protested in ear of sympathising House: "I cannot turn my back upon myself." True that in the last three years of his political career he achieved the apparently impossible. But exception does not make a rule.
More exact parallel found in case of eldest of Dr. Blimber's pupils. Mr. Toots, we know, occupied his time at school chiefly in writing long letters to himself from persons of distinction addressed "P. Toots, Esq., Brighton, Sussex," which with great care he preserved in his desk. Thus, in case of emergency, Sir Nevil Macready, Resident Magistrate, might write to General Sir Nevil Macready in command of troops in Ireland a note something to this effect:
"Sir,—From information received, I expect Ulster will be in a blaze before the end of the week. Please hold yourself in readiness to co-ordinate the action of your troops with that of the Royal Irish Constabulary.—Your obedient Servant, Nevil Macready, Resident Magistrate. To Sir Nevil Macready, General in command of troops in Ireland."
Premier tried to explain away the situation. Remembering recreation of Mr. Toots, it is not really so bad as Lord "Bob's" earnest desire for preservation of law and order in Ulster leads him to fear.
Business done.—On motion of Prime Minister new Standing Order dealing with blocking motions carried nemine contradicente.
House of Lords, Thursday,—The death of the Duke of Argyll leaves the House of Lords poorer by withdrawal of a quiet, gracious presence. I talked with him here a few days before the Easter recess. To-night the MacCailean Mhor, on his way to his last resting-place in the Highlands, sleeps amid the stately silence of Westminster Abbey, unawakened by the noiseless footsteps of the ghosts of great men dead. Thus in Plantagenet times the coffined body of the wife of Edward I., brought from Lincoln to Westminster, halted by the way, Charing Cross being the last of the nine resting-places of her bier.
A happy marriage which brought him into close kinship with the Sovereign forbade the Duke's taking active part in political life. It gave him fuller opportunity for dallying with his dearly-loved foster-mother, Literature. Endowed with the highest honours birth could give or the Sovereign bestow, he bore them with a modesty that made others momentarily forget their existence. Circumstances precluding his living at Inveraray Castle and keeping up its feudal state, it was characteristic of him that he cheerily homed himself in a cottage some two miles down the loch-side, originally built for a factor. Little by little he enlarged the residence till Dalchenna House became a roomy mansion. Here, in company of a few choice companions, it was his delight to stay during the autumn months. He kept to his study in the morning, engaged in literary work or dealing with his vast correspondence. After luncheon he led his guests forth, usually on foot, to tread the Highland ways he knew since boyhood, when as Marquis of Lorne he presented the picture of manly beauty in Highland dress that to-day adorns the hall of Inveraray Castle.
In later years he built for himself a châlet set amid the pine-trees of the ancient French forest of Hardelot, within sight and sound and scent of the sea. Like Dalchenna this began in a small way. Enamoured with the peace and rest that brooded over the place, he went on year by year enlarging and embellishing it.
According to long-laid plans he was to have spent the Easter recess in his French retreat. Almost at the last moment duty called him elsewhere, and, as was his wont, he uncomplainingly obeyed. But he insisted that two old friends, whom he had bidden to keep Easter tryst with him, should not alter their plans. So the châlet, with its dainty appointments and its domestic establishment after the Duke's own heart—a French peasant and his wife, who acted as butler and cook—was placed at their disposal, he bestowing infinite pains upon arrangements for their comfort whilst under his roof.
"It was hardly a tactful way of trying to convert him to the movement to place a bomb under his throne at St. Paul's."—The Bishop of London in the Debate on Lord Selborne's Bill for Female Enfranchisement.
This little episode, the most recent in a busy life, is a typical instance of his unselfishness and untiring thought for others.
A scholar of wide reading, a man of shrewd judgment, and, as his government of Canada disclosed, a statesman of high degree, he might have filled a part in public affairs at least as lofty as that commanded by his distinguished father. Debarred from such career he was content to live up to the highest standard of Christian conduct. If a line of commentary might be added to the inscription on the coffin which to-morrow journeys northward to lie beside those of the ten Dukes of Argyll at rest in the burial-place of the Campbells at Kilmun, here it is written in one of the oldest of Books: "He went about doing good."
Business done.—Commons resume debate on Budget.